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Plans for a third coal-fired power plant at Delta are dead.
The Intermountain Power Agency said Wednesday it will let the air-quality permit for a coal-fired Unit 3 expire. Instead, the company will focus on other options for the central Utah site, said IPA spokesman John Ward.
"The understanding within IPA is that if there were ever an attempt to start another third coal-fired power unit at that location, they would have to start over," he said. "This particular permit application would be moot."
Environmental groups, who have been fighting Unit 3 since it was first proposed, applauded the move.
The plant "would have burdened Utah with more coal-burning pollution," said Wayne Hoskinson, chairman of the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club. "This opens the door for additional renewable projects, like the Milford wind development, allowing the state to still be an exporter of energy without the cost of worsened air quality and more mercury pollution."
The Sierra Club's appeal of the Unit 3 air permit has been on hold for more than a year, while IPA, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems were in court over a breach-of-contract suit over the new 900-megawatt generating station. That suit was settled quietly last month.
UAMPS, which has 36 local-utility members that participate in the Intermountain Power Project Unit 3 Project, was able to recoup some of its costs, estimated at about $6.4 million in the original 2007 lawsuit. Some cities already have received checks. Although it fought for the right to defend the permit last year before the Utah Air Quality Board, now the group has no interest in pushing forward with Unit 3, said attorney Matthew McNulty.
"It's not up to UAMPS to defend the [air-quality] permit," he said.
The Sierra Club said the plant permit should not have been granted because its emissions would impair the visibility of national parks, including Capitol Reef, and it did not make use of the latest clean-coal technology.
IPP Unit 3's fate is being repeated nationwide, according to Tim Wagner, former director of the Sierra Club's smart energy campaign. Of the 150 coal-fired power plants planned for the United State in the past few years, about 100 have been permanently or indefinitely shelved.
There are two remaining power plants proposed for Utah, the 270-megawatt Sevier Power generating station in Sigurd, which also is being challenged by the Sierra Club, and the 86-megawatt Bonanza Plant near Vernal.
Meanwhile, there has been no change in the official status of the IPP Unit 3 permit appeal at the Utah Air Quality Board, said attorney Fred Nelson.
"The matter is just in limbo," said Nelson, noting that he has not heard from either side about ending the appeal.
Los Angeles has not officially announced its Unit 3 plans. But just last week, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said his city would completely wean its 1.45 million electricity customers from coal-fired power by 2020.
"The cancellation of IPP Unit No. 3 is really an indicator of a changing world," said V. John White, of the Center of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies in Sacramento, California.
"It reflects a changing need of power customers, increasing awareness of the dirty footprint associated with coal, and a strong desire to pursue a new, cleaner direction."
This is a corrected version of the story originally published July 8. The Los Angeles mayor's goal is to use coal-free energy by 2020. An incorrect target date was cited in the original.
